The Revd Dr John Waston has travelled extensively, exploring Christianity throughout the world, and lectures at home and abroad. He works as an Assistant Priest in a Dorset village, writes the fortnightly Coptophile Column for Cairo’s Watani (the leading Christian newspaper in the Middle East), and contributes regularly to Kirche
im Dialog in Mannheim, Germany. He is the author of Among
the Copts (2000) and Christians Observed (2004), both published by SAP.

In today’s world, Christianity and Islam
are capable of dialogue. Neither faith has a single religious establishment
or narrow belief system, both are rainbows of faith and practice.
There is difference and there is delight for many believers in both
traditions. Tragically, there is also some expression of institutional
divergence.

In Listening to Islam a devout Trappist
monk, Thomas Merton, and a dedicated Sufi
mystic, live in intimate prayerful relationship. Sayyid
Qutb, a major ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood,
was a literary educationalist whose exposition of the Qur’an
is justifiably famous, though his version of political Islam is
offensive to many Muslims. Bishop Kenneth Cragg
is a careful translator, expositor and analyst of the Qur’an
and modern Islam. He has devoted much of his life to the Arabic
language and its people. He speaks of himself and his Muslim interlocutors
as those who believe in one God. Ziauddin Sardar,
who describes himself as “a sceptical Muslim in search of
Paradise”, writes with remarkable fluency on the current confrontation
between the West and Islam.

Through
Praise, Reason and Reflection, these four dialogists provide compelling
evidence of the complexities, differences and rewards of exchanging
ideas and opinions on the development and necessity of Islamic–Christian
interfaith understanding.

Paperback ISBN:

978-1-84519-101-6

Paperback Price:

£13.95 / $24.95

Release Date:

May 2005

Page Extent / Format:

120 pp. / 229 x 152 mm

Illustrated:

No

Preface
Acknowledgements

THOMAS MERTON – BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE

LISTENING TO ISLAM WITH THOMAS MERTON

SAYYID QUTB – BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE

LISTENING TO ISLAM WITH SAYYID QUTB

KENNETH CRAGG – BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE

LISTENING TO ISLAM WITH KENNETH CRAGG

ZIAUDDIN SARDAR – BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE

LISTENING TO ISLAM WITH ZIAUDDIN SARDAR

Sources
The Qur'an in Translation and Quranic References
Index

Watson
alerts that while Merton’s work on Buddhism and Taoism is
well known, the extent of his interest in Islam and specifically
Sufism has only gradually become common knowledge. The essay on
Merton’s ‘listening to Islam’ is focused on Sufism
and Merton’s reading of Sufi texts, along with books and
articles on Sufism. It highlights his correspondence with a number
of contemporary Muslims, most notably the Pakistani Muslim student
of Sufism, Abd al-‘Aziz, with whom Merton was in regular
if intermittent correspondence during the last ten years of his
life. A notable feature of the essay is Watson’s mention
of the Orthodox Christian musician, Sir John Tavener, whose views
he finds very compatible with Merton’s.The Merton
Seasonal

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